Harry Potter and the Final Reality
by gleefulmusings
Summary: Harry defeats Voldemort, but dies at the Battle of Hogwarts. Stuck in Limbo, he meets a beautiful but obnoxious woman who offers him the chance to do everything all over again and then announces she's coming along for the ride. Harry Potter and Cordelia Chase head to Hogwarts.
1. This Was Your Life

There was nothing, just a darkness that was at once cavernous and claustrophobic.

"So, I'm guessing dead."

Well, this was certainly anticlimactic.

"I reckon I had supposed that dying for the second time – or would it be the third? – would be more interesting," Harry mused.

There was no Kings Cross station, no Dumbledore, no reunion with dead parents or dogfather.

There was just…nothing.

"This sucks."

* * *

For lack of anything better to do, Harry had taken to sitting on the floor.

He supposed there was a floor. He couldn't really tell, given that he couldn't even see his hand before his face, but there was something flat and solid beneath his feet, so he had decided to sit upon it and wait to find out what would happen next. He'd always been accused of being impatient and, seeing as how he had no other viable options, he determined it best to stay put.

He wasn't sure why or how this had occurred. He was fairly certain that he had finally managed to kill Voldemort, but what had happened after was unknown to him. How had he died? Had he been killed? If so, who was responsible? He wasn't even sure he really cared, but he still wanted to know. He could only hope that Hermione, Ron, Luna, and Neville had lived. It would be rather off-putting to have survived all he had only for his friends to go down with him.

It was a sad testament to his life that he could think of only four people who would care that he was gone. He had acquaintances and allies and such, but no other true friends. He wasn't even sure that Neville and Luna were aware he considered them friends. Well, that was all on him, he supposed. He was a rather surly bastard who tended to keep people at arm's length under the pretense of keeping them safe. He was like Dumbledore in that regard.

He snorted.

He felt bad for Molly. Voldemort had taken her brothers and now one of her sons. He couldn't even imagine what poor George was going through and doubted the man would ever recover from Fred's loss. Bill at least had Fleur, and their child, and Charlie had always come across to him as a loner. Percy would be fine, he was sure, as would Ginny. While the two were not much alike, they were inherently individuals. Percy had finally managed to conquer his need to please others, while Ginny had never cared about pleasing anyone. They would help each other and their family through the hardest times.

He was quite worried about Ron, though. For all of his bravado and nonchalance, Ron was deeply sensitive, often times overly so, and Harry knew that the loss of Fred and himself would hit Ron hard. Hermione would help him, as she always had, but she would lock away that part of herself which also required help. She would suffer in silence as she had so many times.

Neville had become the incomparable man Harry had always somehow knew was lurking just beneath the surface. He had no doubt Neville would lead the fight in putting the wizarding world back together.

He couldn't even posit Remus and Tonks. He shut away his fear for Teddy and allowed himself to hope that Andromeda would step in and raise him properly.

But Luna…

"I miss her," Harry said aloud, surprised by his own voice. "I miss her already."

The primary reason he had kept Luna at a distance was because he recognized himself in her, that part of him which had always been desperate to retreat inside himself and stay there forever. He supposed that had he not been raised by the Dursleys and forced to remain cognizant of the world around him, he might have ended up just like Luna. More's the pity he didn't.

Granted, Luna was far more brilliant than he could ever hope to be, but she was damaged, much as he was, and though he had been the face and the hope of the war against Voldemort, it was in these quiet moments he could admit Luna had been his hope that he would somehow be okay.

That was gone now, and he resented it.

Was this all there was? Was this all he was ever meant to be, a lamb sacrificed on the altar of the egos of Voldemort and Dumbledore? He had fulfilled his purpose and now his time was over.

In a way, it was a relief. The first eleven years of his life had taught him to question if he even had the right to exist; the last six had suggested his existence served only to complete his task. His apparent death certainly seemed to imply that he had been unwise and even foolish to expect anything beyond that.

He couldn't find the energy to be angry. He didn't even have the desire. It was startling, not to be angry. For so long, that had been the only thing which fueled him. Dumbledore had always been adamant that love was the key to defeating Voldemort but, even now, Harry was unsure.

He had loved and knew that he had been loved in return, but love itself, as an emotion, had never filled him fully. He had never experienced its purity or its patience. Instead, it had teased him – had mocked him – making its presence known, but always secondary to anger, confusion, or pain.

But did it even matter now?

He knew that, had he survived, his life would have become a circus of epic proportions. Once the weight of the world had been placed upon your shoulders, you never truly shrugged it off. People still would have demanded things of him. He would never really have been left alone. Others would still have looked to him to solve their problems.

What kind of life was that? He didn't want that for himself.

Of course, he'd never had much a life to begin with. At least not one that he had happily called his; more like a lot to which he was required to adhere. His entire being had been defined by the actions or inaction of others. He'd had nothing to call his own. Even his scar had been claimed by everyone but him.

How ironic, yet unsurprising, it was to discover that he was just as lonely in death as he had been in life.

"Do you ever stop whining?" a voice demanded.

"No," Harry sullenly replied. "Wait, what?"

"You're not the only ones with problems, you know."

Harry narrowed his eyes in a futile attempt to determine the identity of the speaker. "Where are you? _Who_ are you?"

An annoyed sigh was the immediate answer. "I don't even know why I decided to interfere. I _hate_ dealing with emo kids. Just pop an Elavil and get over it already."

Harry blinked.

"But since the damage is already done, I might as well see this through," the voice continued blathering. "I'm many things, but I'm not a quitter."

There was a snap of fingers and a sudden flood of light.

A bewildered Harry blinked furiously to adjust to the influx, and when he could finally keep his eyes open long enough not to recoil, he looked up into the fiery eyes of the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

She smiled down at him. "Well, at least your taste isn't in question, so maybe you're not totally hopeless." She stuck out her hand and he took it by force of habit rather than any real interest or desire on his part. "Hi, Harry. I'm Cordelia, and you've been royally screwed. Let's do something about that."

Before he could even open his mouth, they disappeared.

* * *

Harry blinked and found himself in a well-appointed sitting room holding a steaming cup of tea.

Cordelia crossed her legs and appraised him. "I never really got the whole tea thing," she said. "It's like crack for Giles and Wesley, but it just tastes like lawn clippings to me."

Who?

She waved a hand dismissively. "Later. Let's talk about you."

He snorted. "What's to talk about? It would appear I'm dead."

She nodded. "For now, yes."

He raised an eyebrow.

She nodded again. "Right, let's cover the basics so you have some idea of what's going on, and then I'll answer a few of your more burning questions, okay?"

"All right," he said slowly.

She beamed. "This is a pocket dimension. It's a kind of haven from all of the realities playing out across the universe. With me so far?"

"Barely."

She shrugged. "Good enough. I'm what's called a Higher Being. It's my job to kick back and watch these various realities and make sure they're on the right track. It's a destiny thing."

"I hate that word," he muttered.

"I _so_ understand," she murmured. "I had my own to contend with, and it sucked big time."

He really wasn't in the mood for this woman and her sob story. He was also slightly peeved that she thought her saga was in any way comparable to his own, and said as much.

She scoffed. "You think you're so special? You think you're the only one who's been repeatedly kicked in the teeth because of the manipulations of other people? Bitch, please."

His eyes widened.

"Listen up, Short Stack," she barked, "because I've got a newsflash for you. Yeah, your life was completely trashed because of the whims of other people, other powers which took too much interest in what you could do rather than who you are, but guess what? It happens every day to boys and girls no more or less deserving than you. You totally got a raw deal, and I'm acknowledging that, but you're not Fate's only scratching post."

"Why am I here?" he demanded. "What is this about?"

"Well, aren't you impatient! It's not as though you have anywhere else to be. If you'd quit flapping your thin lips long enough to shut up for a minute, I might just tell you what's going on."

He stared at her, discomforted because, for some unknown reason, he wanted to like her.

She smirked. "It's been a long time since someone was straightforward with you, huh?"

He gave a terse nod.

She sighed. "Look, I can't change what happened to you. Believe me, I would if I could, but trust me when I tell you that I understand. Before I was this, I was human. I had a life, and some of it was good, but a lot of it was truly heinous. I fought Evil. People I loved died. _I_ died. I get it."

He sank into his chair as yet another weight he hadn't even realized he'd been carrying was lifted from him. She _did_ get it. There were no pitying looks or halfhearted commiseration or the desperate attempts at understanding which ultimately failed. There was just acceptance. It was rather nice.

"Back to what I was saying before," Cordelia smoothly continued. "As a Higher Being, my job is to watch what goes on down there, to make sure that destiny is being followed. In most of the realities, you lived. In several, you married Ginny and had some kids and a relatively quiet life."

"Ginny?" he blankly repeated. He couldn't even fathom that. Sure he liked her, and at one time perhaps even fancied her, but he didn't really know her. For all intents and purposes, he regarded her as Ron's sister and little else. She was a nice girl and very pretty, and she was smart and powerful, but he had trouble believing he ended up marrying her.

Cordelia nodded. "In others, you married Hermione."

He raised a brow. If anything, that statement was even more bizarre, for if he did have a sister, surely it was Hermione. He loved her more than he did anyone else. He trusted her in a way he had never nor could ever trust another. She was his rock, his anchor, his tether to a life which he had often wished to relinquish. He couldn't imagine marrying her – he couldn't imagine marrying _anyone_ – but he supposed it made sense after a fashion. He imagined they'd be happy, but he felt inordinately sorry for the hair their children would inherit.

Cordelia shrugged. "Those are just two examples, but I think you get the general idea. In some you married Luna, in others you ended up with Ron. In one of my favorites, you and Seamus got together and soundly beat the Weasley twins at their own game. Every single time."

Harry stared at her for a long moment. "Is this a joke?" he finally asked.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "In any case, in every reality that exists, you've defeated Voldemort. He's no longer an issue. His soul has been obliterated."

"Good."

She nodded and then eyed him carefully. "Ask me."

He blinked at her in confusion before his myriad thoughts cleared. "Cedric?"

She gave him a sad smile and nodded. "Yes. There are realities in which he lived, in which you are together."

He clamped his mouth shut and looked away, scowling.

"No, it's not fair," she said softly. "There are worlds in which James lived, in which Lily lived, and in which both lived. There are worlds in which Neville never lost his parents, or Luna her mother. There are worlds in which Sirius never went to Azkaban or died, and worlds where Remus was never bitten. There are worlds in which you grew up happy and safe and loved. But there was always Voldemort. No matter the circumstances, there was always Voldemort."

She raised a brow. "And there are those realities which are far worse than the one in which you grew up. There are worlds in which you didn't survive the first attack by Voldemort, and there are those in which you died after your first year at Hogwarts, or your second, etcetera. Still, you always managed to take him with you.

"And there are worlds in which Hermione was killed by the troll, and others in which she was killed by the basilisk. Worlds where Ginny didn't survive the chamber, where Bill became a werewolf, where Luna was slaughtered by Dolohov, where Teddy was eviscerated by Bellatrix, and where Fleur lost her baby. There are things I could tell you about these worlds which would cause you to want to destroy reality altogether."

He swallowed heavily and glared at the cup of tea in his hands.

"In every world, death stalked you. In most of them, you fought against it and won, at least long enough to have some modicum of happiness for yourself. But death is eternal, and it eventually claims everyone. The only thing that matters, in the end, is how you face it. You always faced it like the hero you are."

She leaned forward, her eyes boring into his own. "Remember that, Harry. You're a hero because you chose to be. You didn't run and you never quit. Heroes aren't born; we're made. Don't ever make that out for less than what it is."

He felt a blush spreading across his cheeks and silently cursed her for it. She gave him a look and he forced himself to pay attention. She was seriously scary; in some ways, far more so than Voldemort.

"All realities are unique," she said, "but the one you just vacated is particularly so. One thing a lot of people misconstrue about destiny is that it somehow violates free will." She shook her head. "It doesn't. Destiny and free will can coexist, if not always peacefully. No matter what destiny mandates for you, you always have choices."

"Then I made a lot of bad ones," Harry confessed.

"No," Cordelia countered, "you made ignorant ones. There's a difference. You made the best choices you could with the information you had, which was little to none. You made the choices you did, in part, because you were manipulated into making them. Others you made because you were pressured or because it was easier for you to allow others to assume command."

She fell silent for a moment. "Yes," she finally continued, "you've had failures, and some of those were absolutely your fault, but not all of them. Certainly not most of them. Your problem is that you never realized that until it was too late."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You trusted too easily. You didn't question things you should have because you didn't really want to know the answers." She shrugged. "You were lazy."

He bit back the sharp retort that was begging to burst forth from between his lips and considered her words. The feeling behind them was true, he knew, and the more he thought about them, the more instances his mind supplied. Finally, he nodded. "You're right."

"I always am. That's _my_ curse."

He snorted. He could like this woman.

Her eyes softened. "I'm glad, because I like you, Harry. I want to help."

"Why?" he asked, voice plaintive. "Isn't it over?"

She nodded. "It is. The one thing all of these worlds have in common is your defeat of Voldemort. With this last and final defeat, you not only saved your world, Harry, but all the others. Everything has played out the way it should have." She pursed her lips. "Perhaps not as it was supposed to, but they're all safe, and that's because of you. So I think you're owed something."

He looked into her eyes and frowned. "Why now? Why me? This version of me, I mean."

She grinned. "Because now that your destiny has been fulfilled completely, it's your turn to do the manipulating. I'm going to help you, because I'm _very _good at it."

* * *

**End Note**: I've been working on this story off and on for a while now, when not working on my various _Glee _fanfictions. This is a crossover between the world of Harry Potter and the incomparable Cordelia Chase, of the _Buffy/Angel_ fandom. Cordelia is the only character of the latter who will appear.

Yep, it's a _Harry Redoes Hogwarts_ thingy.

I have no real plans for this story and don't know when I'll update again, but wanted to post this teaser introduction in the hope that it will encourage me to write more. I've written primarily in the _Glee _fandom for the past few years and am anxious to try other things. This story will abuse the HP world, because it deserves to be abused. It will be fun and lighthearted, because Harry's had enough angst to last several lifetimes. Super!Harry just for kicks, and effervescently obnoxious!Cordelia because it's who she is. Slash, because I'm me.


	2. A Little Tuition

Harry listened passively as Cordelia offered her spiel. When she was finally done, and he _did_ admire her brevity, he shook his head to clear it.

"You want to send me back?" he asked, his disbelief obvious.

"You don't have to go," she snapped. "I'm not forcing you. You can move on, free to be with your parents and Sirius and Cedric, where you'll eventually be joined by Hermione, Luna, and the others. That will happen regardless. This is completely optional, a bonus. This is a chance for you to carve your life into something you want."

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. "It can't be that easy."

She rolled her eyes again and Harry marveled at how she had managed to turn such a simple gesture into an unparalleled art.

"Of course it's not that easy, you titmouse!" she bellowed. "There are rules! There _have_ to be. The question is whether or not you can abide them. If you go back, you will be placed at the moment you received your first letter."

His eyes widened. "But that means…"

She nodded. "You would have to return to the world you just left. I can't allow you to cross dimensions, Harry. It would punch holes in the universe, leaving devastation in its wake. The very fabric of all reality would begin to unravel and chaos would descend." She paused. "Or so someone in a big blue box would have us believe."

She shrugged. "People who should live would die, and people who died at their proper time would be alive once more. There's even a chance some malevolent entity could take advantage of the situation and usurp the role Voldemort previously held, totally upsetting the balance. Yada yada."

"Won't sending me back upset the balance?" he demanded.

She blew a lock of hair away from her face. "Possibly, but who cares? That's not our problem. Let one of the Powers deal with it."

He stared at her in horror.

She snorted. "No, I wouldn't really do that. In essence, with your final vanquish of Voldemort, the world you just left has become a closed system. Life will go on without you, because the future of that world has now been spun off into its own reality. We can take advantage of this by reintroducing you into the closed system of the past and manipulating it just for shits and giggles."

She gave him a flat look. "Let me bottom line this for you. I'm offering you a chance to go back and do things over. Sure, some stuff will be different, but most of it will be good. Or at least has the potential to be good. It is what you make of it.

"I can rewind time to send you back. I can do this because, as I said, your defeat of Voldemort was absolute; he's no longer a factor. That said, there are other factors which must be considered."

"Go on," he softly encouraged.

She smiled. "First, you would have to return to the world you just left; no dimension-hopping. Second, you can only go back so far; in this case, when you first received your admissions letter. Now, this is something we can manipulate, as it can be successfully argued that you became truly _cognizant_ of magic when you received that first letter. Considering how it was addressed, you had to know that something bizarre was going on, correct?"

He thought about it and finally shrugged. "I suppose so. I certainly wondered how whoever sent the letter knew I lived in the cupboard under the stairs." He nodded to himself. "I never really thought about it at the time, but that one letter answered questions I hadn't the courage to ask."

She nodded firmly. "See? That's an example of something we can tweak."

He nodded. "It also buys me some time. Not much, but some."

She beamed. "You catch on quick, Hot Pocket. I like that in a man."

Even though he blushed, he was furious. "Hot Pocket?"

"You're adorable!" she cooed. "Take advantage of that, would you? You seriously need to get laid."

"Tell me something I don't know!" he shouted, years of sexual frustration and celibacy roughening his voice. "You have no idea!"

Her eyes widened. "The hell I don't. I lived six years longer than you, and I had sex twice. The first time was with a guy I thought really liked me, someone with whom I thought I might have had a future, but it turned out he was working with a demon and wanted to use me to incubate its spawn. I let him in to my home, gave myself to him, and the next morning I woke up nine months pregnant with Predator."

His eyes bulged.

She nodded. "Yeah. The second time was while I was possessed by a deposed deity, and it was with a boy I raised and considered my own son, who was in fact the son of the vampire with whom I was in love. Again, I got pregnant. The soul of my baby was sacrificed to make way for this deposed deity to be made flesh. Her birth caused me to fall into a coma – my second, by the way – from which I never woke up, and that bitch tried to kill all of my friends and end the world as we know it."

Harry had turned green a while ago. "You win."

She shrugged, though her eyes were hard. "I always do. Deal with it. And I understand about creepy visions, too. In my case, mine were sent by the Powers That Be, the interdimensional beings which govern the universe. You think you know pain? My visions weren't meant for a mortal to bear. Every time I received one, portions of my brain died. I had to bond with a demon just so I could continue to save people."

He stared. A _demon_?

She raised a brow. "I also had a Saving People Thing."

"Who _are_ you?" he whispered.

"I'm pissed off! I'm trying to help your midget ass, and you're being all moody and sullen. I know you're still a teenager and recently dead, but grow up!"

"Sorry," he said quietly.

She waved a hand. "No big. I should probably be nicer or something. I mean, you _did_ just die. In my defense, this is something I've been waiting to offer you for a while, so I'm a little overexcited. That, and I'm a huge bitch."

He grinned. "That's what I need to learn to be."

She nodded seriously. "You really do. One of your problems, Harry, was that you let people walk all over you. You have to learn to stand up for yourself, because, as you found out, you're the only one who can. Hermione was great, she really was, but she could have done more to help you, even if it was only to listen to you more and harangue you less."

"Maybe," he whispered, though he felt guilty for agreeing.

"Whatever. Look, I'm a good person, Harry, but I'm not a nice person. I've never aspired to be. I've found that, in general, being nice just for the sake of it wastes a lot of time and energy. There's too much emphasis on politeness and feelings, and not enough on truth."

He nodded slowly. He agreed wholeheartedly with that statement.

"I'm not saying that politeness isn't important, and the welfare of others should definitely be considered, but I don't believe in placing myself at the back of the line just to make everyone else feel better. I'm not responsible for the happiness of others; they are. I'm no one's martyr."

He nodded more emphatically.

"Okay, so back to what we were talking about. Sending you back is safe because, while there are commonalities across the realities, each one also has specific hallmarks. Your world had way too many, and most of them were because of Dumbledore. We can manipulate them just as easily as he did." She shook her head. "That Santa Claus impersonator has a lot to answer for."

She held up a hand. "Don't get me wrong. He truly loved you, Harry; he considered you the grandchild he never had. And he meant well, he really did. His heart was in the right place, but I don't where the hell his brain was."

Harry burst into hysterical laughter. Eventually, after several long moments, he got himself under control. "So to what would I be returning?"

She grinned. "Like I said, no Voldemort."

His eyes glazed over and the meat of previous words finally sunk in and raced to coalesce with that she was offering. "What?" he asked in a tremulous voice.

She glared at him. "You really think I'd bring you here and give you this option just to force you to fight that moron again? How is that entertaining for me? I already know how that story ends. Hello! I told you he's _gone._"

She gave him a kind smile. "He's gone, Harry. Like I said, his soul is no more, so when I rewind time, he won't be an issue. No Voldemort. No horcruxes. None of it."

"Truly?" he whispered.

"Absolutely," she affirmed, "and no other rising Dark Lords, leftover Death Eaters, or any of that crap. Now, don't get me wrong. There will be leftover Death Eaters and, yes, they will be angry at you. But can they do anything? Not really. They were only ever united under Voldemort; most of them couldn't stand each other. You need to become more political, and you desperately need to learn how to control your temper."

He sighed. "I know. Many people have told me that."

She snorted. "Yeah, and the people who did never learned how to control their own."

He laughed.

"But I'm very serious about this, Harry," she said, her tone grave. "When you give in to anger, you allow yourself to lose control. It's your anger that makes you the most vulnerable, and many people knew that and took advantage of it."

He gave an annoyed nod, dwelling on his memories of Malfoy and Snape.

"I understand what it's like to be surrounded by idiots who are jealous and resentful of you, and make no mistake, that's what most of it was about. From Ron's envious rages, to Snape's pathetic taunts, to Malfoy's endless whining." Her eyes flashed with warning. "They played you, and you let them. _Don't_ do that again."

His eyes widened and he nodded once more, this time with resolution.

"Dumbledore often used your anger against you, as did Voldemort, Umbridge, and countless others, turning it around to make you do what they wanted," she added, shaking her head. "What I don't understand is why you allowed it. How many times did it have to happen before you realized what they were doing?"

He hung his head in shame and embarrassment. "Too many," he murmured.

"I'm not trying to upset you," Cordelia said, struggling for civility, "but I need you to understand this. If you're just going to keep repeating your mistakes, I'm not going to waste my time by rewinding it for you." She raised a brow. "And that is what you want, isn't it? You've already decided."

He bit his lip.

She shook her head. "That's another thing we need to address. You have absolutely no poker face. It's so easy to read you."

"Is there anything about me you _do_ like?" he demanded.

She gave him a bland look. "You're brave, but often to the point of recklessness. You're smart, but insecure in your intelligence. You're an excellent leader, but only step up when the situation is dire."

She frowned. "You're one of the most decent people I've ever known, Harry. Yes, I like you. More than that, however, I respect you, which is more important. You're one of the few people who has ever held my respect, which is why I'm offering you this chance. I just want you to make the most of it. In order for you to do that, it's necessary that I point out all the times you were a dumbass." She nodded. "Let's do that now!"

He groaned and dropped his head on the table.

She grinned.

* * *

Cordelia hadn't been kidding.

Using some accursed device which was similar in principle to a Pensieve, she reviewed with Harry not just his major mistakes, but the many tiny choices he had made in haste or in ignorance or out of laziness.

He was stunned by the sheer number of them. He was horrified by how those small mistakes had then snowballed into much greater consequences, ones which he had not only allowed to go unnoticed, but hadn't even posited as possible. He was appalled not only by many of his actions, but also his inaction; specifically, those times when he knew something was wrong, that someone was lying, that there was more going on than was apparent, but he had remained silent, either out of fear of not being believed or being punished.

Yes, he had been a child. Yes, he had been purposefully kept ignorant of his world. Yes, there were a multitude of reasonable excuses which could be mustered, but the bottom line was that he had often been too hasty, too judgmental, and too unwilling to look beneath the surface of things.

He had always been proud of his sense of intuition, of his ability to perceive right from wrong, but making choices solely on gut-feelings without any empirical evidence to back them up had been foolish, and shades of gray existed regardless of whether or not he chose to acknowledge them.

Throughout the review, Cordelia hadn't hesitated to point out where he had gone wrong or where he had slacked off, but she also offered lavish praise when it was warranted, and apparently it was warranted more often than he realized. He didn't believe this woman would say or do anything she didn't mean, so he was forced to accept that her commendations were genuine. It pleased him. It meant more to him that any kind words from his friends, Molly Weasley, or Dumbledore ever had.

Cordelia had witnessed everything, yes, but had been divorced from the emotional aspect of it all. Yes, she felt for him, but she didn't let those feelings rule her perceptions of him and the situations in which he had found himself. He envied that of her, that steely resolve and ability to consider all sides of a situation unflinchingly.

He wondered how different his life would have been had she been there to stand at his side.

* * *

"If you go back, he'll have died that Halloween."

He soured. "So I'll still be the Boy Who Lived." Despair washed over him. "My parents will still be dead."

She nodded, chagrined. "Sorry, but yeah, that's something I can't change. You'll always be the Boy Who Lived, Harry, and I can't create a new reality just for you. I can only interfere up to a certain point, and the only reason I can send you back at all is because your destiny has been fulfilled in that world. The Boy Who Lived is, in part, what you were created to be. It's a universal construct."

He blinked. "You mean that, in all the other worlds, it was always me? It was never Neville?"

"No," she quietly admitted. "Despite the machinations of Dumbledore, Voldemort, Fudge, Snape – _whoever_ – it was always you."

"Damn."

She laughed, though it was hollow. "It sucks, I know, but don't think the entire world rests on your shoulders." She paused. "Although perhaps that of magical Britain did. However, I know of at least four other people, including myself, with destinies just as wretched, and they're consistent across the universe."

He winced, then sighed. "So what else?" he asked in a dull voice. "No Voldemort, but also no parents. Dursleys?"

She nodded, tears pricking her eyes. "Yes, you will have been raised by the Dursleys – and all that entailed – but that doesn't mean you have to return to them. With no Voldemort, that means no blood wards."

He perked up a little. That was something, he supposed, and the damage they had inflicted would be somewhat removed from him. He hadn't dealt with it all, he wasn't sure he ever would or could, but this time he would make them bleed before departing from their wretched lives.

"Snape will be different, too," Cordelia added, "though not much. He'll still dislike you on principle, just because of who your father was, but he won't have to suffer the burden of being a spy trying to maintain his cover. Not that that was _ever _a good excuse, because, no way. It's up to you if you want to change your relationship with him. I'd absolve him of the life debt, but if you want nothing to do with him, that's your choice and I would totally support you."

The idea of Snape was one he would have to unpack later. "Hermione, Ron, and the Weasleys?" he pressed.

"All there," she confirmed, "but remember, with no Voldemort, that means no life-threatening situations which bond you tightly to Ron and Hermione. If you want those relationships to happen, you'll have to be more proactive, and I want you think carefully about repeating past mistakes."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

She raised a brow. "Before I showed up, you were lamenting your lack of friends. If you want things to be different, you need to accept the fact that, as lovely as Ron and Hermione were, they kept you isolated from almost everyone. You didn't develop your relationships with Neville and Luna until your fifth year, and even then you never told them how much they meant to you. You were so busy with Ron and Hermione, you never took the chance to get to know the other kids in your year, let alone in your house."

He scrunched his nose, unsure as to why that could be considered a bad thing.

"Really?" she barked. "That's pretty judgmental. How well do you _truly_ know Dean, Seamus, Parvati, or Lavender? Your interactions with them were confined to very small instances, despite that fact that you lived with them for seven years. Also, don't forget the fact that Ron disappointed you several times, but you always forgave, even when you perhaps shouldn't have. Hermione was loyal, always, but that doesn't mean you often didn't frustrate one another."

He blushed and looked down at the table.

She sighed. "Look, all I'm saying is that now that you have a chance to change things, so why not change yourself _and _your circumstances for the better? I'm not telling you to forget everything you just left behind, but make some new friends. Learn new magic. Make an effort! Your life will no longer be defined by trying to defeat Voldemort. That leaves you with a lot of free time. What are you going to do with it?"

Well, that was the question, wasn't it? And, suddenly, he had a lot more.

"Luna's mother?" he asked.

Cordelia shook her head. "I'm sorry. Her death occurred before your first year. That won't change."

He curled a lip and then exhaled. "Cedric?" he asked, more hopeful.

She gave him a measured look. "Again, that's up to you. There's a chance the Tournament will still be held, but you won't be entered in it. You can't depend on that to bring you together. You can't expect that he'll fall in love with you again because those circumstances won't conspire to bring you into each other's orbit. If you want him, you'll have to work for him."

"You mean manipulate him," he seethed.

"Oh, grow up!" she snapped. "You don't have to manipulate him, and I doubt you would even if you could. We both know that, despite popular opinion, Cedric Diggory was no pushover and could be more stubborn than Hermione. Manipulate the circumstances! Get to know him sooner. Be his friend. Maybe it will turn into something more and maybe it won't. I don't know!"

She threw up her hands. "I'm giving you the chance to find out. Even if nothing happens, even if you're only friends, it's still more time with him than you had, and it takes nothing away from the love you shared."

He fell silent.

"It won't be easy," she continued in a more sedate voice. "I never promised that it would be. But if you love him, if you want to be with him, then shouldn't you be willing to fight for him?"

He nodded absently.

"Listen to my words carefully, Harry," she said, her voice low. "I made that mistake. I lost the only man I ever truly loved because I didn't fight for him. He hurt me, and badly, but I could've forgiven him. My hurt feelings, however, were more important to me at that time than his honest contrition. We both paid for my hubris. If you love Cedric Diggory, then you hold to that boy and destroy anything which threatens to take him from you."

He stared at her for a very long time and at last nodded.

"Sirius?"

She nodded, appearing relieved to be treading less emotional ground. "That's up to you. He'll be in prison. You know how to get him out. Take your time and make sure you cover all the bases." She glared. "If you let that rat escape again, I'll kick your ass."

He barked out a laugh. "So I'll remember everything?"

She exhaled. "Yeah, and that's a curse in and of itself, but it's one you'll have to bear. You'll remember them, you'll remember your history with them, and, as circumstances have changed and will continue to change, so will the people around you."

She gave him another one of those looks. "You have to be sure you can live with that. There's no turning back if you decide to do this. You'll essentially be a seventeen year old in an eleven-year-old body, but those around you will be their actual mental ages. You'll have full knowledge of everything you've learned, and I'll be sending you back with a fully-developed magical core, so you'll be as powerful as you are now."

His eyes widened.

"Find out what you like," she suggested. "You excelled in Defense because you were fighting for survival, so your learning was continually spurred on by need. You know your mother was gifted in Charms and Potions, and your father in Transfiguration. Perhaps you'll want to explore those subjects more carefully. Consider Runes and that math course, whatever the hell it's called. Demand advanced study. Everyone always considered you a powerful wizard, so be one. Show up and blow them all out of the water."

He fidgeted.

She shook her head. "This is something we need to nip in the bud right now. This idea you have that you're _Just Harry_ isn't going to cut it any longer. You were never _Just Harry_ and you never will be. You were never meant to be."

She cut him off when he opened his mouth to protest.

"You need some perspective here, Hot Pocket. So I want you to stop and think about some things. First, you, at twelve years old, defeated a thousand year old monster with nothing more than a sword. That's not normal. At thirteen, you learned the Patronus Charm, a spell so difficult that many people seven times your age could never hope to utilize it. More than that, you mastered that charm and repelled a hundred Dementors at once. That is in no way average. At fourteen and severely disadvantaged, you triumphed over older students to win the Triwizard Tournament. Lay aside for the moment the circumstances of your entry and instead look at what you accomplished."

She gave him several moments to dwell on that.

"Now, I want you to think long and hard about something. Is there any other student at Hogwarts, regardless of age, who would have fared half as well? The answer is no. Ron was of average magical strength and a well of wasted potential. Hermione had the smarts, but was nowhere near as independent, both socially and emotionally, as you were; she would have crumbled under the pressure."

"Luna," Harry shot back.

Cordelia thought about that and at last nodded. "I'll give you that one," she said, before smiling, "but Luna would have been smart enough to get out of the Tournament the very night her name was announced."

He grimaced but agreed.

"Finally," she said, "there's this: you defeated the most powerful Dark Lord of three generations, not just once, but multiple times. Think about that. Voldemort _never_ truly defeated you, Harry. The only time he did was when _you_ allowed him to do so."

He reared back in shock, unwilling to consider her statements just yet. "But how will I explain knowing magic?"

She smirked. "That's where I come in."


End file.
